as imperceptibly as grief

Question 1

poet

Answer 1

emily dickinson

Question 2

structure

Answer 2

• no set rhyme scheme= reflective of her broken, isolated life
• continuous stanza = continuation of grief
• use of dashes = next stages of grief
• rhythm mirrors everyday speech = honest thoughts

Question 3

context

Answer 3

• lived opposite a graveyard
• isolated life = suffered with agoraphobia
• had fascination with death, illness and dying
• many friends passed away

Question 4

“seem like perfidy”

Answer 4

simile shows the belief that the passing of summer is like a betrayal or form of trick. it has faded away so subtly and “imperceptibly” that it went unnoticed. reflective of the narrators expression of sadness, perhaps synonymous with their feelings about grief

Question 5

“morning foreign shone”

Answer 5

• “foreign” suggests the sun appearing is abnormal due to it being winter
• perhaps the sun represents her happiness in which is is “foreign” to her due to her reclusive, agoraphobic life
• “shone” suggests that her grief perhaps is becoming easier to manage
• “morning” cannot face the morning as perhaps brightness is symbolic of hope, in which she lacks

Question 6

“our summer made her light escape”

Answer 6

• pronoun “our” = creates a sense of these feelings and experiences being universal
• “light escape” = reflects the effortless process due to it being natural, recognition of how she has no control over nature but also her own emotions

Question 7

“into the beautiful”

Answer 7

• perhaps refers to heaven or the treasured memories from summer,
• perhaps reflective of how the future is “beautiful” as the burden of grief has been released from her
• only full stop = finality of summer and grief having passed, speaker emits a tone of acceptance

Question 8

“as imperceptibly as grief the
summer lapsed away”

Answer 8

• sense of grief and being reclusive is prevalent with the repetition of the title in the first line
• gentle metaphor for summer fading into
  autumn gradually and without a fuss. Here, the effect is gentle through the use of the verb “lapsed” something happening effortlessly there is no sudden movement w
  just a matter‐of‐fact recognition that the seasons fade into each other and that this is natural, as is death
  and grief. It is ‘imperceptible’ perhaps, as it just happens and almost sneaks up on you, meaning that you
  have no control over these events; the seasons or the grief. Perhaps, the effect Dickinson wants to create is
  one of acceptance, as we can’t change these things, so perhaps instead have to go with them. This would
  reflect her reclusive nature as she would have had a lot of time on her hands and therefore would be more
  likely to notice the passing of time and the unstoppable nature of this.